VSQUAD prepared a step-by-step instruction on how to create hand-painted textures in Substance Painter without using normal maps.
In this tutorial, we want to share a step by step guide about how to make a hand-painted texture without any normal map in Substance Painter. Of course, if you have a high poly model the process will be easier and the final result will be cooler.
The GIF below shows the full texturing process we’ll cover (click it):
You can also find a recorded version of the tutorial below:
Let’s start. First, you need to create and prepare your model in any 3D package. Mainly, we use the fbx format to import it to the Substance later.
Template is a way Substance renders your normal map (G channels in Unity and Unreal have a difference). Since we don’t use normal – leave it as it is. Run the program, click New File, select your model. In the document resolution, you can choose anything and change it later if needed.
Find TEXTURE SET SETTINGS and click on Bake Mesh Maps.
The main feature of Substance is generators. Using this tool you can make any kind of gradients, play with you cavities, edges, and much more. To make this happened Substance has to render its specific maps, so we start from baking maps. Click on “Use low poly as high poly” since we don’t have a high poly model.
An important thing about our pipeline worth mentioning: we will mainly use Fill layers and will not use Layers like in Photoshop. Delete Layer and create our first Fill layer. It’ll be our base color.
Change option Material to Base color since it’s supposed to be a hand-painted texture.
We want to start by applying AO to our model to see some base texture. Let’s study how to do it. Create a new Fill Layer. Find MATERIALS. Turn off everything except color. Click on Base Color, find your AO in the list.
Here how it looks like now. Flags have another shader, that’s why they are still white. The easiest way is when you have 1 shader and 1 texture.
Now let’s start to work with the generators.
Let’s do a bit more organization, put our stones base texture to the folder and study how to make the masks.
Let’s do the same for another material.
My settings for Paint tool:
Now, what do you have to paint by hand? All the details you didn’t model but want to have, some specific places like lines on the roof and window textures.
Let’s take a look at the brick texture. Here we have a 3D Linear Gradient generator and extra levels above the generators.
We have almost no metal parts in this castle, but I want to share with you how to make some interesting textures for metal parts with a special filter called Baked Lighting Stylized. Simply create the base color of your metal, add AO and then drag and drop this filter above your AO. Play with lighting parameters to achieve the result.
We like how metal works on the tower, but it looks too simple on other parts. In a case like this, you can duplicate the filter, create a mask for another part and change the parameters.
Using this pipeline you can finish all the castle. Now we’ll show you how to export your texture.
By clicking on Export Texture you will find a lot of presets from Substance, but in our case (exporting diffuse) we have to create our own one in the Configuration section.
Simply choose your new configuration in EXPORT list and there you go.
Here’s the final textured model of the castle:
It is available for purchase in Unity Asset Store if you are interested.
P.S. Thanks to our 3D artist Vitali Koziuk and Volodya Liubchuk for this cool castle model and texture examples!